Made It (mostly) Through....

Well, I managed my way out of this week, for the most part. I'm glad to have it as a memory now.

Tuesday I managed a 7.4 mile trail run. I knew I'd need it to make it through the rest of the week.

Julia's Christmas program was the sweetest thing. She looked beautiful, proudly sporting her new 'do. I was (of course) super proud of her, and despite being REALLY nervous, she did beautifully.

I wish I could say I enjoyed the rest of the show, but truthfully, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention. James has had a rough month, and has been fighting a cold. Add that to his normal personality, and it was a rough go. I spent the majority of the time trying to keep him from having an outburst, getting kicked, getting stepped on, bla bla bla. But we made it til the end. Barely.

The next day, we had Jack's winter band concert. I was looking forward to this - he really is getting good! I was anxious to see him perform.

In hind sight, I should have known better. I should have done it SO differently. We got a decent seat, but were smashed on bleachers. The warm up is always excruciatingly dissonant. The lady directly in front of us had no regard for people behind her. The chaos of the room left James anxious and volatile. We had 15 minutes of warm up to go, and he was already in full on melt down mode. So I took him out.

I wish I could say that I calmed him down and we made it back inside in time to see Jack play, but that wasn't the way of things. Sometimes autism fucking sucks. I spent the concert in the van, crying. James was happy to wait for the performance to be over. I didn't get to see any of it.

But. Jack did extremely well, and the concert was a success without me. We got home, got the kids in bed, and instead of running (which is what I SHOULD have done) I busted out french onion dip and pretzels and stared at the TV. Not my finest moment, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time.

Yesterday, I woke up with another crazy morning ahead of me. Everyone was tired. We had to get to James' school early for his IEP review. James woke up PISSED off. *sigh*

But once he got all that out of his system, we had a great meeting with his teacher and therapists. He is doing beautifully, and they are starting to prep him for kindergarten. I'm really proud of how far he's come, and thankful for a system that is working for him, despite the difficulty of the last weeks.

I left him at school, came home, and got a call from my friend Sarah - could I run? HELL YES. It was 47 degrees and I wore a skirt and a long sleeved tee. I froze my ass off the first mile (damn it was windy!) but I didn't care. 4 miles later and I was a new person. It was Sarah's birthday the day before, so she shared some of her cake with me. I ate it for lunch. Don't judge.

I'm really behind on Christmas shopping, but hoping to finish this weekend. The tough stuff is behind me, and the fun stuff coming up. Can't wait!

(oh, and only 32 miles to go!!)